Soul

The Prairie-Grass Dividing

THE prairie-grass dividing--its special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,
Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and


command--leading, not following,
Those with a never-quell'd audacity--those with sweet and lusty
flesh, clear of taint,
Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors,
as to say, Who are you?
Those of earth-born passion, simple, never-constrain'd, never
obedient,
Those of inland America. 10

The Last Invocation

At the last, tenderly,

From the walls of the powerful fortress'd house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.
Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks--with a whisper,
Set open the doors O soul.


Tenderly--be not impatient,
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh,
Strong is your hold O love.)

The Imprisoned Soul

AT the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress'd house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks--from the keep of the well-closed
doors,
Let me be wafted.


Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks--with a whisper
Set ope the doors, O soul!


Tenderly! be not impatient!
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!
Strong is your hold, O love!)

The Artilleryman's Vision

WHILE my wife at my side lies slumbering, and the wars are over long,
And my head on the pillow rests at home, and the vacant midnight
passes,
And through the stillness, through the dark, I hear, just hear, the

breath of my infant,
There in the room, as I wake from sleep, this vision presses upon me:
The engagement opens there and then, in fantasy unreal;
The skirmishers begin--they crawl cautiously ahead--I hear the

irregular snap! snap!
I hear the sounds of the different missiles--the short t-h-t! t-h-t!
of the rifle balls;
I see the shells exploding, leaving small white clouds--I hear the
great shells shrieking as they pass;
The grape, like the hum and whirr of wind through the trees, (quick,
tumultuous, now the contest rages!)
All the scenes at the batteries themselves rise in detail before me

again; 10
The crashing and smoking--the pride of the men in their pieces;
The chief gunner ranges and sights his piece, and selects a fuse of


the right time;
After firing, I see him lean aside, and look eagerly off to note the
effect;
--Elsewhere I hear the cry of a regiment charging--(the young colonel
leads himself this time, with brandish'd sword;)
I see the gaps cut by the enemy's volleys, (quickly fill'd up, no
delay;)
I breathe the suffocating smoke--then the flat clouds hover low,
concealing all;
Now a strange lull comes for a few seconds, not a shot fired on
either side;
Then resumed, the chaos louder than ever, with eager calls, and
orders of officers;
While from some distant part of the field the wind wafts to my ears a
shout of applause, (some special success;)

And ever the sound of the cannon, far or near, (rousing, even in
dreams, a devilish exultation, and all the old mad joy, in the
depths of my soul;) 20


And ever the hastening of infantry shifting positions--batteries,
cavalry, moving hither and thither;
(The falling, dying, I heed not--the wounded, dripping and red, I


heed not--some to the rear are hobbling;)
Grime, heat, rush--aid-de-camps galloping by, or on a full run;
With the patter of small arms, the warning s-s-t of the rifles,


(these in my vision I hear or see,)
And bombs busting in air, and at night the vari-color'd rockets.

Tests

ALL submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to
analysis, in the Soul;
Not traditions--not the outer authorities are the judges--they are
the judges of outer authorities, and of all traditions;
They corroborate as they go, only whatever corroborates themselves,
and touches themselves;
For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far
and near, without one exception.

That Music Always Round Me

THAT music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning--yet long untaught

I did not hear;
But now the chorus I hear, and am elated;
A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health, with glad notes of


day-break I hear,
A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense
waves,
A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously under and through the
universe,
The triumphant tutti--the funeral wailings, with sweet flutes and
violins--all these I fill myself with;
I hear not the volumes of sound merely--I am moved by the exquisite
meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving,
contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves--but now I think I
begin to know them.

Song Of The Redwood-Tree

A CALIFORNIA song!
A prophecy and indirection--a thought impalpable, to breathe, as air;
A chorus of dryads, fading, departing--or hamadryads departing;
A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky,
Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.


Farewell, my brethren,
Farewell, O earth and sky--farewell, ye neighboring waters;
My time has ended, my term has come.


Along the northern coast,
Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves, 10
In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country,
With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and hoarse,
With crackling blows of axes, sounding musically, driven by strong


arms,
Riven deep by the sharp tongues of the axes--there in the Redwood
forest dense,
I heard the mighty tree its death-chant chanting.

The choppers heard not--the camp shanties echoed not;
The quick-ear'd teamsters, and chain and jack-screw men, heard not,
As the wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years, to


join the refrain;
But in my soul I plainly heard.


Murmuring out of its myriad leaves, 20
Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high,
Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs--out of its foot-thick bark,
That chant of the seasons and time--chant, not of the past only, but


the future.

You untold life of me,
And all you venerable and innocent joys,
Perennial, hardy life of me, with joys, 'mid rain, and many a summer


sun,
And the white snows, and night, and the wild winds;
O the great patient, rugged joys! my soul's strong joys, unreck'd by

man;
(For know I bear the soul befitting me--I too have consciousness,

identity,
And all the rocks and mountains have--and all the earth;) 30
Joys of the life befitting me and brothers mine,
Our time, our term has come.

Nor yield we mournfully, majestic brothers,
We who have grandly fill'd our time;
With Nature's calm content, and tacit, huge delight,
We welcome what we wrought for through the past,



And leave the field for them.

For them predicted long,

For a superber Race--they too to grandly fill their time,

For them we abdicate--in them ourselves, ye forest kings! 40

In them these skies and airs--these mountain peaks--Shasta--Nevadas,

These huge, precipitous cliffs--this amplitude--these valleys grand-Yosemite,


To be in them absorb'd, assimilated.

Then to a loftier strain,
Still prouder, more ecstatic, rose the chant,
As if the heirs, the Deities of the West,
Joining, with master-tongue, bore part.


Not wan from Asia's fetishes,

Nor red from Europe's old dynastic slaughter-house,

(Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent left yet of wars and
scaffolds every where,) 50

But come from Nature's long and harmless throes--peacefully builded
thence,

These virgin lands--Lands of the Western Shore,

To the new Culminating Man--to you, the Empire New,

You, promis'd long, we pledge, we dedicate.

You occult, deep volitions,

You average Spiritual Manhood, purpose of all, pois'd on yourself-giving,
not taking law,

You Womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, whence life and
love, and aught that comes from life and love,

You unseen Moral Essence of all the vast materials of America, (age
upon age, working in Death the same as Life,)

You that, sometimes known, oftener unknown, really shape and mould
the New World, adjusting it to Time and Space,

You hidden National Will, lying in your abysms, conceal'd, but ever
alert, 60

You past and present purposes, tenaciously pursued, may-be
unconscious of yourselves,

Unswerv'd by all the passing errors, perturbations of the surface;

You vital, universal, deathless germs, beneath all creeds, arts,
statutes, literatures,

Here build your homes for good--establish here--These areas entire,
Lands of the Western Shore,

We pledge, we dedicate to you.

For man of you--your characteristic Race,

Here may be hardy, sweet, gigantic grow--here tower, proportionate to
Nature,

Here climb the vast, pure spaces, unconfined, uncheck'd by wall or
roof,

Here laugh with storm or sun--here joy--here patiently inure,


Here heed himself, unfold himself (not others' formulas heed)--here

fill his time, 70
To duly fall, to aid, unreck'd at last,
To disappear, to serve.

Thus, on the northern coast,
In the echo of teamsters' calls, and the clinking chains, and the
music of choppers' axes,
The falling trunk and limbs, the crash, the muffled shriek, the
groan,
Such words combined from the Redwood-tree--as of wood-spirits' voices

ecstatic, ancient and rustling,
The century-lasting, unseen dryads, singing, withdrawing,
All their recesses of forests and mountains leaving,
From the Cascade range to the Wasatch--or Idaho far, or Utah,
To the deities of the Modern henceforth yielding, 80
The chorus and indications, the vistas of coming humanity--the

settlements, features all,
In the Mendocino woods I caught.

The flashing and golden pageant of California!
The sudden and gorgeous drama--the sunny and ample lands;
The long and varied stretch from Puget Sound to Colorado south;
Lands bathed in sweeter, rarer, healthier air--valleys and mountain


cliffs;
The fields of Nature long prepared and fallow--the silent, cyclic
chemistry;
The slow and steady ages plodding--the unoccupied surface ripening-


the rich ores forming beneath;
At last the New arriving, assuming, taking possession,
A swarming and busy race settling and organizing every where;
Ships coming in from the whole round world, and going out to the

whole world, 90
To India and China and Australia, and the thousand island paradises
of the Pacific;
Populous cities--the latest inventions--the steamers on the rivers-the
railroads--with many a thrifty farm, with machinery,
And wool, and wheat, and the grape--and diggings of yellow gold.

But more in you than these, Lands of the Western Shore!
(These but the means, the implements, the standing-ground,)
I see in you, certain to come, the promise of thousands of years,


till now deferr'd,
Promis'd, to be fulfill'd, our common kind, the Race.

The New Society at last, proportionate to Nature,
In Man of you, more than your mountain peaks, or stalwart trees
imperial, 100
In Woman more, far more, than all your gold, or vines, or even vital
air.


Fresh come, to a New World indeed, yet long prepared,

I see the Genius of the Modern, child of the Real and Ideal,

Clearing the ground for broad humanity, the true America, heir of the

past so grand,

To build a grander future.

Song Of The Exposition

AFTER all, not to create only, or found only,
But to bring, perhaps from afar, what is already founded,
To give it our own identity, average, limitless, free;
To fill the gross, the torpid bulk with vital religious fire;
Not to repel or destroy, so much as accept, fuse, rehabilitate;
To obey, as well as command--to follow, more than to lead;
These also are the lessons of our New World;
--While how little the New, after all--how much the Old, Old World!


Long, long, long, has the grass been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling, 10
Long has the globe been rolling round.


Come, Muse, migrate from Greece and Ionia;
Cross out, please, those immensely overpaid accounts,
That matter of Troy, and Achilles' wrath, and Eneas', Odysseus'


wanderings;
Placard "Removed" and "To Let" on the rocks of your snowy Parnassus;
Repeat at Jerusalem--place the notice high on Jaffa's gate, and on

Mount Moriah;
The same on the walls of your Gothic European Cathedrals, and German,
French and Spanish Castles;
For know a better, fresher, busier sphere--a wide, untried domain
awaits, demands you.

Responsive to our summons,
Or rather to her long-nurs'd inclination, 20
Join'd with an irresistible, natural gravitation,


She comes! this famous Female--as was indeed to be expected;
(For who, so-ever youthful, 'cute and handsome, would wish to stay in


mansions such as those,
When offer'd quarters with all the modern improvements,
With all the fun that 's going--and all the best society?)


She comes! I hear the rustling of her gown;
I scent the odor of her breath's delicious fragrance;
I mark her step divine--her curious eyes a-turning, rolling,
Upon this very scene.


The Dame of Dames! can I believe, then, 30
Those ancient temples classic, and castles strong and feudalistic,
could none of them restrain her?
Nor shades of Virgil and Dante--nor myriad memories, poems, old


associations, magnetize and hold on to her?
But that she 's left them all--and here?


Yes, if you will allow me to say so,
I, my friends, if you do not, can plainly see Her,



The same Undying Soul of Earth's, activity's, beauty's, heroism's
Expression,
Out from her evolutions hither come--submerged the strata of her

former themes,
Hidden and cover'd by to-day's--foundation of to-day's;
Ended, deceas'd, through time, her voice by Castaly's fountain;
Silent through time the broken-lipp'd Sphynx in Egypt--silent those

century-baffling tombs; 40
Closed for aye the epics of Asia's, Europe's helmeted warriors;
Calliope's call for ever closed--Clio, Melpomene, Thalia closed and

dead;
Seal'd the stately rhythmus of Una and Oriana--ended the quest of the

Holy Graal;
Jerusalem a handful of ashes blown by the wind--extinct;
The Crusaders' streams of shadowy, midnight troops, sped with the

sunrise;
Amadis, Tancred, utterly gone--Charlemagne, Roland, Oliver gone,
Palmerin, ogre, departed--vanish'd the turrets that Usk reflected,
Arthur vanish'd with all his knights--Merlin and Lancelot and

Galahad--all gone--dissolv'd utterly, like an exhalation;
Pass'd! pass'd! for us, for ever pass'd! that once so mighty World-now
void, inanimate, phantom World!

Embroider'd, dazzling World! with all its gorgeous legends, myths, 50
Its kings and barons proud--its priests, and warlike lords, and
courtly dames;
Pass'd to its charnel vault--laid on the shelf--coffin'd, with Crown

and Armor on,
Blazon'd with Shakspeare's purple page,
And dirged by Tennyson's sweet sad rhyme.

I say I see, my friends, if you do not, the Animus of all that World,
Escaped, bequeath'd, vital, fugacious as ever, leaving those dead
remains, and now this spot approaching, filling;
--And I can hear what maybe you do not--a terrible aesthetical

commotion,
With howling, desperate gulp of "flower" and "bower,"
With "Sonnet to Matilda's Eyebrow" quite, quite frantic;
With gushing, sentimental reading circles turn'd to ice or stone; 60
With many a squeak, (in metre choice,) from Boston, New York,

Philadelphia, London;
As she, the illustrious Emigré, (having, it is true, in her day,
although the same, changed, journey'd considerable,)
Making directly for this rendezvous--vigorously clearing a path for

herself--striding through the confusion,
By thud of machinery and shrill steam-whistle undismay'd,
Bluff'd not a bit by drain-pipe, gasometers, artificial fertilizers,
Smiling and pleased, with palpable intent to stay,
She 's here, install'd amid the kitchen ware!

But hold--don't I forget my manners?


To introduce the Stranger (what else indeed have I come for?) to

thee, Columbia:
In Liberty's name, welcome, Immortal! clasp hands, 70
And ever henceforth Sisters dear be both.

Fear not, O Muse! truly new ways and days receive, surround you,
(I candidly confess, a queer, queer race, of novel fashion,)
And yet the same old human race--the same within, without,
Faces and hearts the same--feelings the same--yearnings the same,
The same old love--beauty and use the same.


We do not blame thee, Elder World--nor separate ourselves from thee:
(Would the Son separate himself from the Father?)
Looking back on thee--seeing thee to thy duties, grandeurs, through


past ages bending, building,
We build to ours to-day. 80

Mightier than Egypt's tombs,
Fairer than Grecia's, Roma's temples,
Prouder than Milan's statued, spired Cathedral,
More picturesque than Rhenish castle-keeps,
We plan, even now, to raise, beyond them all,
Thy great Cathedral, sacred Industry--no tomb,
A Keep for life for practical Invention.


As in a waking vision,
E'en while I chant, I see it rise--I scan and prophesy outside and
in,
Its manifold ensemble. 90

Around a Palace,
Loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet,
Earth's modern Wonder, History's Seven outstripping,
High rising tier on tier, with glass and iron façades.


Gladdening the sun and sky--enhued in cheerfulest hues,
Bronze, lilac, robin's-egg, marine and crimson,
Over whose golden roof shall flaunt, beneath thy banner, Freedom,
The banners of The States, the flags of every land,
A brood of lofty, fair, but lesser Palaces shall cluster.


Somewhere within the walls of all, 100
Shall all that forwards perfect human life be started,
Tried, taught, advanced, visibly exhibited.


Here shall you trace in flowing operation,
In every state of practical, busy movement,
The rills of Civilization.


Materials here, under your eye, shall change their shape, as if by



magic;
The cotton shall be pick'd almost in the very field,
Shall be dried, clean'd, ginn'd, baled, spun into thread and cloth,

before you:
You shall see hands at work at all the old processes, and all the new
ones;
You shall see the various grains, and how flour is made, and then
bread baked by the bakers; 110
You shall see the crude ores of California and Nevada passing on and
on till they become bullion;
You shall watch how the printer sets type, and learn what a composing
stick is;
You shall mark, in amazement, the Hoe press whirling its cylinders,
shedding the printed leaves steady and fast:
The photograph, model, watch, pin, nail, shall be created before you.

In large calm halls, a stately Museum shall teach you the infinite,
solemn lessons of Minerals;
In another, woods, plants, Vegetation shall be illustrated--in
another Animals, animal life and development.

One stately house shall be the Music House;
Others for other Arts--Learning, the Sciences, shall all be here;
None shall be slighted--none but shall here be honor'd, help'd,


exampled.

This, this and these, America, shall be your Pyramids and

Obelisks, 120
Your Alexandrian Pharos, gardens of Babylon,
Your temple at Olympia.

The male and female many laboring not,
Shall ever here confront the laboring many,
With precious benefits to both--glory to all,
To thee, America--and thee, Eternal Muse.


And here shall ye inhabit, Powerful Matrons!
In your vast state, vaster than all the old;
Echoed through long, long centuries to come,
To sound of different, prouder songs, with stronger themes, 130
Practical, peaceful life--the people's life--the People themselves,
Lifted, illumin'd, bathed in peace--elate, secure in peace.


Away with themes of war! away with War itself!
Hence from my shuddering sight, to never more return, that show of
blacken'd, mutilated corpses!
That hell unpent, and raid of blood--fit for wild tigers, or for lop


tongued wolves--not reasoning men!
And in its stead speed Industry's campaigns!
With thy undaunted armies, Engineering!


Thy pennants, Labor, loosen'd to the breeze!
Thy bugles sounding loud and clear!

Away with old romance! 140

Away with novels, plots, and plays of foreign courts!

Away with love-verses, sugar'd in rhyme--the intrigues, amours of
idlers,

Fitted for only banquets of the night, where dancers to late music
slide;

The unhealthy pleasures, extravagant dissipations of the few,

With perfumes, heat and wine, beneath the dazzling chandeliers.

To you, ye Reverent, sane Sisters,

To this resplendent day, the present scene,

These eyes and ears that like some broad parterre bloom up around,
before me,

I raise a voice for far superber themes for poets and for Art,

To exalt the present and the real, 150

To teach the average man the glory of his daily walk and trade,

To sing, in songs, how exercise and chemical life are never to be
baffled;

Boldly to thee, America, to-day! and thee, Immortal Muse!

To practical, manual work, for each and all--to plough, hoe, dig,

To plant and tend the tree, the berry, the vegetables, flowers,

For every man to see to it that he really do something--for every
woman too;

To use the hammer, and the saw, (rip or cross-cut,)

To cultivate a turn for carpentering, plastering, painting,

To work as tailor, tailoress, nurse, hostler, porter,

To invent a little--something ingenious--to aid the washing, cooking,
cleaning, 160

And hold it no disgrace to take a hand at them themselves.

I say I bring thee, Muse, to-day and here,

All occupations, duties broad and close,

Toil, healthy toil and sweat, endless, without cessation,

The old, old general burdens, interests, joys,

The family, parentage, childhood, husband and wife,

The house-comforts--the house itself, and all its belongings,

Food and its preservations--chemistry applied to it;

Whatever forms the average, strong, complete, sweet-blooded Man or
Woman--the perfect, longeve Personality,

And helps its present life to health and happiness--and shapes its
Soul, 170

For the eternal Real Life to come.


With latest materials, works,
Steam-power, the great Express lines, gas, petroleum,
These triumphs of our time, the Atlantic's delicate cable,
The Pacific Railroad, the Suez canal, the Mont Cenis tunnel;
Science advanced, in grandeur and reality, analyzing every thing,



This world all spann'd with iron rails--with lines of steamships
threading every sea,
Our own Rondure, the current globe I bring.


And thou, high-towering One--America!
Thy swarm of offspring towering high--yet higher thee, above all


towering, 180
With Victory on thy left, and at thy right hand Law;
Thou Union, holding all--fusing, absorbing, tolerating all,
Thee, ever thee, I bring.

Thou--also thou, a world!
With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant,
Rounding by thee in One--one common orbic language,
One common indivisible destiny and Union.


And by the spells which ye vouchsafe,
To those, your ministers in earnest,
I here personify and call my themes, 190
To make them pass before ye.


Behold, America! (And thou, ineffable Guest and Sister!)
For thee come trooping up thy waters and thy lands:
Behold! thy fields and farms, thy far-off woods and mountains,
As in procession coming.


Behold! the sea itself!
And on its limitless, heaving breast, thy ships:
See! where their white sails, bellying in the wind, speckle the green


and blue!
See! thy steamers coming and going, steaming in or out of port!
See! dusky and undulating, their long pennants of smoke! 200

Behold, in Oregon, far in the north and west,
Or in Maine, far in the north and east, thy cheerful axemen,
Wielding all day their axes!


Behold, on the lakes, thy pilots at their wheels--thy oarsmen!
Behold how the ash writhes under those muscular arms!


There by the furnace, and there by the anvil,
Behold thy sturdy blacksmiths, swinging their sledges;
Overhand so steady--overhand they turn and fall, with joyous clank,
Like a tumult of laughter.


Behold! (for still the procession moves,) 210
Behold, Mother of All, thy countless sailors, boatmen, coasters!
The myriads of thy young and old mechanics!
Mark--mark the spirit of invention everywhere--thy rapid patents,
Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising;



See, from their chimneys, how the tall flame-fires stream!

Mark, thy interminable farms, North, South,

Thy wealthy Daughter-States, Eastern, and Western,

The varied products of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Texas,
and the rest;

Thy limitless crops--grass, wheat, sugar, corn, rice, hemp, hops,

Thy barns all fill'd--thy endless freight-trains, and thy bulging
store-houses, 220

The grapes that ripen on thy vines--the apples in thy orchards,

Thy incalculable lumber, beef, pork, potatoes--thy coal--thy gold and
silver,

The inexhaustible iron in thy mines.

All thine, O sacred Union!
Ship, farm, shop, barns, factories, mines,
City and State--North, South, item and aggregate,
We dedicate, dread Mother, all to thee!


Protectress absolute, thou! Bulwark of all!

For well we know that while thou givest each and all, (generous as
God,)

Without thee, neither all nor each, nor land, home, 230

Ship, nor mine--nor any here, this day, secure,

Nor aught, nor any day secure.

And thou, thy Emblem, waving over all!

Delicate beauty! a word to thee, (it may be salutary;)

Remember, thou hast not always been, as here to-day, so comfortably
ensovereign'd;

In other scenes than these have I observ'd thee, flag;

Not quite so trim and whole, and freshly blooming, in folds of
stainless silk;

But I have seen thee, bunting, to tatters torn, upon thy splinter'd
staff,

Or clutch'd to some young color-bearer's breast, with desperate
hands,

Savagely struggled for, for life or death--fought over long, 240

'Mid cannon's thunder-crash, and many a curse, and groan and yell-and
rifle-volleys cracking sharp,

And moving masses, as wild demons surging--and lives as nothing
risk'd,

For thy mere remnant, grimed with dirt and smoke, and sopp'd in
blood;

For sake of that, my beauty--and that thou might'st dally, as now,
secure up there,

Many a good man have I seen go under.

Now here, and these, and hence, in peace all thine, O Flag!


And here, and hence, for thee, O universal Muse! and thou for them!
And here and hence, O Union, all the work and workmen thine!
The poets, women, sailors, soldiers, farmers, miners, students thine!
None separate from Thee--henceforth one only, we and Thou; 250
(For the blood of the children--what is it only the blood Maternal?
And lives and works--what are they all at last except the roads to


Faith and Death?)

While we rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear

Mother!
We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in Thee;
--Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross, or


lucre--it is for Thee, the Soul, electric, spiritual!
Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in Thee! Cities and States in
Thee!
Our freedom all in Thee! our very lives in Thee!

Song of Myself, XI

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.


She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.


Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.


Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.


Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.


The beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran from their long
hair,
Little streams pass'd over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass'd over their bodies,
It descended trembling from their temples and ribs.


The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun,
they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with the pendant and bending
arch,
They do not think whom they souse with spray.

Song of Myself, I, II, VI & LII

I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.


I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.


My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
this air,

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and
their parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,

Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never
forgotten,

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,

Nature without check with original energy.

Song At Sunset

SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic--hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat--you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.


Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.


Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space--sphere of unnumber'd spirits; 10
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest

insect;
Illustrious the attribute of speech--the senses--the body;
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the


new moon in the western sky!
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.


Good in all,
In the satisfaction and aplomb of animals,
In the annual return of the seasons,
In the hilarity of youth,
In the strength and flush of manhood,
In the grandeur and exquisiteness of old age, 20
In the superb vistas of Death.


Wonderful to depart;
Wonderful to be here!
The heart, to jet the all-alike and innocent blood!
To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak! to walk! to seize something by the hand!
To prepare for sleep, for bed--to look on my rose-color'd flesh;
To be conscious of my body, so satisfied, so large;
To be this incredible God I am;
To have gone forth among other Gods--these men and women I love. 30


Wonderful how I celebrate you and myself!
How my thoughts play subtly at the spectacles around!
How the clouds pass silently overhead!
How the earth darts on and on! and how the sun, moon, stars, dart on


and on!
How the water sports and sings! (Surely it is alive!)
How the trees rise and stand up--with strong trunks--with branches


and leaves!
(Surely there is something more in each of the tree--some living
Soul.)


O amazement of things! even the least particle!
O spirituality of things!
O strain musical, flowing through ages and continents--now reaching



me and America! 40
I take your strong chords--I intersperse them, and cheerfully pass
them forward.

I too carol the sun, usher'd, or at noon, or, as now, setting,
I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth, and of all the
growths of the earth,
I too have felt the resistless call of myself.


As I sail'd down the Mississippi,
As I wander'd over the prairies,
As I have lived--As I have look'd through my windows, my eyes,
As I went forth in the morning--As I beheld the light breaking in the


east;
As I bathed on the beach of the Eastern Sea, and again on the beach
of the Western Sea;
As I roam'd the streets of inland Chicago--whatever streets I have

roam'd; 50
Or cities, or silent woods, or peace, or even amid the sights of war;
Wherever I have been, I have charged myself with contentment and

triumph.

I sing the Equalities, modern or old,
I sing the endless finales of things;
I say Nature continues--Glory continues;
I praise with electric voice;
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe;
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the


universe.

O setting sun! though the time has come,
I still warble under you, if none else does, unmitigated
adoration. 60

Scented Herbage Of My Breast

SCENTED herbage of my breast,
Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards,
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death,
Perennial roots, tall leaves--O the winter shall not freeze you,


delicate leaves,
Every year shall you bloom again--out from where you retired, you
shall emerge again;
O I do not know whether many, passing by, will discover you, or
inhale your faint odor--but I believe a few will;
O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell, in


your own way, of the heart that is under you;
O burning and throbbing--surely all will one day be accomplish'd;
O I do not know what you mean, there underneath yourselves--you are

not happiness,
You are often more bitter than I can bear--you burn and sting me, 10
Yet you are very beautiful to me, you faint-tinged roots--you make me

think of Death,
Death is beautiful from you--(what indeed is finally beautiful,
except Death and Love?)
--O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of
lovers--I think it must be for Death,
For how calm, how solemn it grows, to ascend to the atmosphere of

lovers,
Death or life I am then indifferent--my Soul declines to prefer,
I am not sure but the high Soul of lovers welcomes death most;
Indeed, O Death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as

you mean;
Grow up taller, sweet leaves, that I may see! grow up out of my


breast!
Spring away from the conceal'd heart there!
Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots, timid leaves! 20
Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!
Come, I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of mine--I have


long enough stifled and choked:
--Emblematic and capricious blade, I leave you--now you serve me not;
Away! I will say what I have to say, by itself,
I will escape from the sham that was proposed to me,
I will sound myself and comrades only--I will never again utter a

call, only their call,
I will raise, with it, immortal reverberations through The States,
I will give an example to lovers, to take permanent shape and will


through The States;
Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating;
Give me your tone therefore, O Death, that I may accord with it, 30
Give me yourself--for I see that you belong to me now above all, and

are folded inseparably together--you Love and Death are;
Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling


life,
For now it is convey'd to me that you are the purports essential,
That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons--and that


they are mainly for you,


That you, beyond them, come forth, to remain, the real reality,
That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter how

long,
That you will one day, perhaps, take control of all,
That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance,
That may-be you are what it is all for--but it does not last so very

long;
But you will last very long. 40

Shut Not Your Doors, &c.

SHUT not your doors to me, proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet
needed most, I bring;
Forth from the army, the war emerging--a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing--the drift of it everything;
A book separate, not link'd with the rest, nor felt by the intellect,
But you, ye untold latencies, will thrill to every page;
Through Space and Time fused in a chant, and the flowing, eternal
Identity,
To Nature, encompassing these, encompassing God--to the joyous,
electric All,
To the sense of Death--and accepting, exulting in Death, in its turn,
the same as life,
The entrance of Man I sing. 10

Rise, O Days

RISE, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer
sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour'd what the earth gave

me;
Long I roam'd the woods of the north--long I watch'd Niagara pouring;
I travel'd the prairies over, and slept on their breast--I cross'd

the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea;
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm;
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart,

and powerful!) 10
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellow'd after the lightning;
Noted the slender and jagged threads of lightning, as sudden and fast


amid the din they chased each other across the sky;
--These, and such as these, I, elate, saw--saw with wonder, yet


pensive and masterful;
All the menacing might of the globe uprisen around me;
Yet there with my soul I fed--I fed content, supercilious.


'Twas well, O soul! 'twas a good preparation you gave me!
Now we advance our latent and ampler hunger to fill;
Now we go forth to receive what the earth and the sea never gave us;
Not through the mighty woods we go, but through the mightier cities;
Something for us is pouring now, more than Niagara pouring; 20
Torrents of men, (sources and rills of the Northwest, are you indeed


inexhaustible?)
What, to pavements and homesteads here--what were those storms of the

mountains and sea?
What, to passions I witness around me to-day? Was the sea risen?
Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?
Lo! from deeps more unfathomable, something more deadly and savage;
Manhattan, rising, advancing with menacing front--Cincinnati,

Chicago, unchain'd;
--What was that swell I saw on the ocean? behold what comes here!
How it climbs with daring feet and hands! how it dashes!
How the true thunder bellows after the lightning! how bright the


flashes of lightning!
How DEMOCRACY, with desperate vengeful port strides on, shown through

the dark by those flashes of lightning! 30
(Yet a mournful wail and low sob I fancied I heard through the dark,
In a lull of the deafening confusion.)


Thunder on! stride on, Democracy! strike with vengeful stroke!
And do you rise higher than ever yet, O days, O cities!
Crash heavier, heavier yet, O storms! you have done me good;
My soul, prepared in the mountains, absorbs your immortal strong



nutriment;
--Long had I walk'd my cities, my country roads, through farms, only
half-satisfied;
One doubt, nauseous, undulating like a snake, crawl'd on the ground
before me,
Continually preceding my steps, turning upon me oft, ironically
hissing low;
--The cities I loved so well, I abandon'd and left--I sped to the
certainties suitable to me; 40
Hungering, hungering, hungering, for primal energies, and Nature's

dauntlessness,
I refresh'd myself with it only, I could relish it only;
I waited the bursting forth of the pent fire--on the water and air I

waited long;
--But now I no longer wait--I am fully satisfied--I am glutted;
I have witness'd the true lightning--I have witness'd my cities


electric;
I have lived to behold man burst forth, and warlike America rise;
Hence I will seek no more the food of the northern solitary wilds,
No more on the mountains roam, or sail the stormy sea.

Proud Music Of The Storm

PROUD music of the storm!
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies!
Strong hum of forest tree-tops! Wind of the mountains!
Personified dim shapes! you hidden orchestras!
You serenades of phantoms, with instruments alert,
Blending, with Nature's rhythmus, all the tongues of nations;
You chords left us by vast composers! you choruses!
You formless, free, religious dances! you from the Orient!
You undertone of rivers, roar of pouring cataracts;
You sounds from distant guns, with galloping cavalry! 10
Echoes of camps, with all the different bugle-calls!
Trooping tumultuous, filling the midnight late, bending me powerless,
Entering my lonesome slumber-chamber--Why have you seiz'd me?


Come forward, O my Soul, and let the rest retire;
Listen--lose not--it is toward thee they tend;
Parting the midnight, entering my slumber-chamber,
For thee they sing and dance, O Soul.


A festival song!
The duet of the bridegroom and the bride--a marriage-march,
With lips of love, and hearts of lovers, fill'd to the brim with


love; 20
The red-flush'd cheeks, and perfumes--the cortege swarming, full of
friendly faces, young and old,
To flutes' clear notes, and sounding harps' cantabile.

Now loud approaching drums!
Victoria! see'st thou in powder-smoke the banners torn but flying?
the rout of the baffled?
Hearest those shouts of a conquering army?

(Ah, Soul, the sobs of women--the wounded groaning in agony,
The hiss and crackle of flames--the blacken'd ruins--the embers of
cities,
The dirge and desolation of mankind.)

Now airs antique and medieval fill me!
I see and hear old harpers with their harps, at Welsh festivals: 30
I hear the minnesingers, singing their lays of love,
I hear the minstrels, gleemen, troubadours, of the feudal ages.


Now the great organ sounds,
Tremulous--while underneath, (as the hid footholds of the earth,
On which arising, rest, and leaping forth, depend,
All shapes of beauty, grace and strength--all hues we know,
Green blades of grass, and warbling birds--children that gambol and



play--the clouds of heaven above,)
The strong base stands, and its pulsations intermits not,
Bathing, supporting, merging all the rest--maternity of all the rest;
And with it every instrument in multitudes, 40
The players playing--all the world's musicians,
The solemn hymns and masses, rousing adoration,
All passionate heart-chants, sorrowful appeals,
The measureless sweet vocalists of ages,
And for their solvent setting, Earth's own diapason,
Of winds and woods and mighty ocean waves;
A new composite orchestra--binder of years and climes--ten-fold

renewer,
As of the far-back days the poets tell--the Paradiso,
The straying thence, the separation long, but now the wandering done,
The journey done, the Journeyman come home, 50
And Man and Art, with Nature fused again.

Tutti! for Earth and Heaven!
The Almighty Leader now for me, for once has signal'd with his wand.


The manly strophe of the husbands of the world,
And all the wives responding.


The tongues of violins!
(I think, O tongues, ye tell this heart, that cannot tell itself;
This brooding, yearning heart, that cannot tell itself.)


Ah, from a little child,
Thou knowest, Soul, how to me all sounds became music; 60
My mother's voice, in lullaby or hymn;
(The voice--O tender voices--memory's loving voices!
Last miracle of all--O dearest mother's, sister's, voices;)
The rain, the growing corn, the breeze among the long-leav'd corn,
The measur'd sea-surf, beating on the sand,
The twittering bird, the hawk's sharp scream,
The wild-fowl's notes at night, as flying low, migrating north or


south,
The psalm in the country church, or mid the clustering trees, the

open air camp-meeting,
The fiddler in the tavern--the glee, the long-strung sailor-song,
The lowing cattle, bleating sheep--the crowing cock at dawn. 70

All songs of current lands come sounding 'round me,
The German airs of friendship, wine and love,
Irish ballads, merry jigs and dances--English warbles,
Chansons of France, Scotch tunes--and o'er the rest,
Italia's peerless compositions.


Across the stage, with pallor on her face, yet lurid passion,



Stalks Norma, brandishing the dagger in her hand.

I see poor crazed Lucia's eyes' unnatural gleam;
Her hair down her back falls loose and dishevell'd.

I see where Ernani, walking the bridal garden, 80
Amid the scent of night-roses, radiant, holding his bride by the
hand,
Hears the infernal call, the death-pledge of the horn.

To crossing swords, and grey hairs bared to heaven,
The clear, electric base and baritone of the world,
The trombone duo--Libertad forever!


From Spanish chestnut trees' dense shade,
By old and heavy convent walls, a wailing song,
Song of lost love--the torch of youth and life quench'd in despair,
Song of the dying swan--Fernando's heart is breaking.


Awaking from her woes at last, retriev'd Amina sings; 90
Copious as stars, and glad as morning light, the torrents of her joy.


(The teeming lady comes!
The lustrious orb--Venus contralto--the blooming mother,
Sister of loftiest gods--Alboni's self I hear.)


I hear those odes, symphonies, operas;
I hear in the William Tell, the music of an arous'd and angry people;
I hear Meyerbeer's Huguenots, the Prophet, or Robert;
Gounod's Faust, or Mozart's Don Juan.


I hear the dance-music of all nations,
The waltz, (some delicious measure, lapsing, bathing me in
bliss;) 100
The bolero, to tinkling guitars and clattering castanets.

I see religious dances old and new,
I hear the sound of the Hebrew lyre,
I see the Crusaders marching, bearing the cross on high, to the


martial clang of cymbals;
I hear dervishes monotonously chanting, interspers'd with frantic

shouts, as they spin around, turning always towards Mecca;
I see the rapt religious dances of the Persians and the Arabs;
Again, at Eleusis, home of Ceres, I see the modern Greeks dancing,
I hear them clapping their hands, as they bend their bodies,
I hear the metrical shuffling of their feet.

I see again the wild old Corybantian dance, the performers wounding
each other; 110
I see the Roman youth, to the shrill sound of flageolets, throwing


and catching their weapons,
As they fall on their knees, and rise again.

I hear from the Mussulman mosque the muezzin calling;
I see the worshippers within, (nor form, nor sermon, argument, nor
word,
But silent, strange, devout--rais'd, glowing heads--extatic faces.)

I hear the Egyptian harp of many strings,
The primitive chants of the Nile boatmen;
The sacred imperial hymns of China,
To the delicate sounds of the king, (the stricken wood and stone;)
Or to Hindu flutes, and the fretting twang of the vina, 120
A band of bayaderes.


Now Asia, Africa leave me--Europe, seizing, inflates me;
To organs huge, and bands, I hear as from vast concourses of voices,
Luther's strong hymn, Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott;
Rossini's Stabat Mater dolorosa;
Or, floating in some high cathedral dim, with gorgeous color'd


windows,
The passionate Agnus Dei, or Gloria in Excelsis.

Composers! mighty maestros!
And you, sweet singers of old lands--Soprani! Tenori! Bassi!
To you a new bard, carolling free in the west,
Obeisant, sends his love. 130


(Such led to thee, O Soul!
All senses, shows and objects, lead to thee,
But now, it seems to me, sound leads o'er all the rest.)


I hear the annual singing of the children in St. Paul's Cathedral;
Or, under the high roof of some colossal hall, the symphonies,
oratorios of Beethoven, Handel, or Haydn;
The Creation, in billows of godhood laves me.

Give me to hold all sounds, (I, madly struggling, cry,)
Fill me with all the voices of the universe,
Endow me with their throbbings--Nature's also,
The tempests, waters, winds--operas and chants--marches and


dances, 140
Utter--pour in--for I would take them all.

Then I woke softly,
And pausing, questioning awhile the music of my dream,
And questioning all those reminiscences--the tempest in its fury,



And all the songs of sopranos and tenors,
And those rapt oriental dances, of religious fervor,
And the sweet varied instruments, and the diapason of organs,
And all the artless plaints of love, and grief and death,
I said to my silent, curious Soul, out of the bed of the slumber


chamber,
Come, for I have found the clue I sought so long, 150
Let us go forth refresh'd amid the day,
Cheerfully tallying life, walking the world, the real,
Nourish'd henceforth by our celestial dream.


And I said, moreover,
Haply, what thou hast heard, O Soul, was not the sound of winds,
Nor dream of raging storm, nor sea-hawk's flapping wings, nor harsh


scream,
Nor vocalism of sun-bright Italy,
Nor German organ majestic--nor vast concourse of voices--nor layers

of harmonies;
Nor strophes of husbands and wives--nor sound of marching soldiers,
Nor flutes, nor harps, nor the bugle-calls of camps; 160
But, to a new rhythmus fitted for thee,
Poems, bridging the way from Life to Death, vaguely wafted in night

air, uncaught, unwritten,
Which, let us go forth in the bold day, and write.

Poems Of Joys

O TO make the most jubilant poem!
Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death.
O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Full of common employments! full of grain and trees.


O for the voices of animals! O for the swiftness and balance of

fishes!
O for the dropping of rain-drops in a poem!
O for the sunshine, and motion of waves in a poem.


O the joy of my spirit! it is uncaged! it darts like lightning!
It is not enough to have this globe, or a certain time--I will have
thousands of globes, and all time.


O the engineer's joys! 10
To go with a locomotive!
To hear the hiss of steam--the merry shriek--the steam-whistle--the

laughing locomotive!
To push with resistless way, and speed off in the distance.


O the gleesome saunter over fields and hill-sides!
The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds--the moist fresh
stillness of the woods,
The exquisite smell of the earth at day-break, and all through the
forenoon.


O the horseman's and horsewoman's joys!
The saddle--the gallop--the pressure upon the seat--the cool gurgling
by the ears and hair.

O the fireman's joys!
I hear the alarm at dead of night, 20
I hear bells--shouts!--I pass the crowd--I run!
The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.


O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena, in
perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his
opponent.


O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human Soul
is capable of generating and emitting in steady and limitless
floods.

O the mother's joys!
The watching--the endurance--the precious love--the anguish--the
patiently yielded life.

O the joy of increase, growth, recuperation;


The joy of soothing and pacifying--the joy of concord and harmony.


O to go back to the place where I was born!
To hear the birds sing once more! 30
To ramble about the house and barn, and over the fields, once more,
And through the orchard and along the old lanes once more.


O male and female!


O the presence of women! (I swear there is nothing more exquisite to
me than the mere presence of women;)

O for the girl, my mate! O for the happiness with my mate!

O the young man as I pass! O I am sick after the friendship of him
who, I fear, is indifferent to me.

O the streets of cities!

The flitting faces--the expressions, eyes, feet, costumes! O I cannot
tell how welcome they are to me.

O to have been brought up on bays, lagoons, creeks, or along the
coast!

O to continue and be employ'd there all my life! 40

O the briny and damp smell--the shore--the salt weeds exposed at low
water,

The work of fishermen--the work of the eel-fisher and clam-fisher.

O it is I!

I come with my clam-rake and spade! I come with my eel-spear;

Is the tide out? I join the group of clam-diggers on the flats,

I laugh and work with them--I joke at my work, like a mettlesome
young man.

In winter I take my eel-basket and eel-spear and travel out on foot
on the ice--I have a small axe to cut holes in the ice;

Behold me, well-clothed, going gaily, or returning in the afternoon-my
brood of tough boys accompaning me,

My brood of grown and part-grown boys, who love to be with no one
else so well as they love to be with me,

By day to work with me, and by night to sleep with me. 50

Or, another time, in warm weather, out in a boat, to lift the
lobster-pots, where they are sunk with heavy stones, (I know
the buoys;)

O the sweetness of the Fifth-month morning upon the water, as I row,
just before sunrise, toward the buoys;

I pull the wicker pots up slantingly--the dark-green lobsters are
desperate with their claws, as I take them out--I insert wooden
pegs in the joints of their pincers,

I go to all the places, one after another, and then row back to the
shore,

There, in a huge kettle of boiling water, the lobsters shall be


boil'd till their color becomes scarlet.

Or, another time, mackerel-taking,

Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the
water for miles:

Or, another time, fishing for rock-fish, in Chesapeake Bay--I one of
the brown-faced crew:

Or, another time, trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with
braced body,

My left foot is on the gunwale--my right arm throws the coils of
slender rope, 60

In sight around me the quick veering and darting of fifty skiffs, my
companions.

O boating on the rivers!

The voyage down the Niagara, (the St. Lawrence,)--the superb
scenery--the steamers,

The ships sailing--the Thousand Islands--the occasional timber-raft,
and the raftsmen with long-reaching sweep-oars,

The little huts on the rafts, and the stream of smoke when they cook
their supper at evening.

O something pernicious and dread!
Something far away from a puny and pious life!
Something unproved! Something in a trance!
Something escaped from the anchorage, and driving free.


O to work in mines, or forging iron! 70

Foundry casting--the foundry itself--the rude high roof--the ample
and shadow'd space,

The furnace--the hot liquid pour'd out and running.

O to resume the joys of the soldier:

To feel the presence of a brave general! to feel his sympathy!

To behold his calmness! to be warm'd in the rays of his smile!

To go to battle! to hear the bugles play, and the drums beat!

To hear the crash of artillery! to see the glittering of the bayonets
and musket-barrels in the sun!

To see men fall and die, and not complain!

To taste the savage taste of blood! to be so devilish!

To gloat so over the wounds and deaths of the enemy. 80

O the whaleman's joys! O I cruise my old cruise again!

I feel the ship's motion under me--I feel the Atlantic breezes
fanning me,

I hear the cry again sent down from the mast-head--There--she blows!

--Again I spring up the rigging, to look with the rest--We see--we
descend, wild with excitement,

I leap in the lower'd boat--We row toward our prey, where he lies,


We approach, stealthy and silent--I see the mountainous mass,
lethargic, basking,

I see the harpooneer standing up--I see the weapon dart from his
vigorous arm:

O swift, again, now, far out in the ocean, the wounded whale,
settling, running to windward, tows me;

--Again I see him rise to breathe--We row close again,

I see a lance driven through his side, press'd deep, turn'd in the
wound, 90

Again we back off--I see him settle again--the life is leaving him
fast,

As he rises, he spouts blood--I see him swim in circles narrower and
narrower, swiftly cutting the water--I see him die;

He gives one convulsive leap in the centre of the circle, and then
falls flat and still in the bloody foam.

O the old manhood of me, my joy!
My children and grand-children--my white hair and beard,
My largeness, calmness, majesty, out of the long stretch of my life.


O the ripen'd joy of womanhood!


O perfect happiness at last!


I am more than eighty years of age--my hair, too, is pure white--I am
the most venerable mother;

How clear is my mind! how all people draw nigh to me! 100

What attractions are these, beyond any before? what bloom, more than
the bloom of youth?

What beauty is this that descends upon me, and rises out of me?

O the orator's joys!

To inflate the chest--to roll the thunder of the voice out from the
ribs and throat,

To make the people rage, weep, hate, desire, with yourself,

To lead America--to quell America with a great tongue.

O the joy of my soul leaning pois'd on itself--receiving identity
through materials, and loving them--observing characters, and
absorbing them;

O my soul, vibrated back to me, from them--from facts, sight,
hearing, touch, my phrenology, reason, articulation,
comparison, memory, and the like;

The real life of my senses and flesh, transcending my senses and
flesh;

My body, done with materials--my sight, done with my material
eyes; 110

Proved to me this day, beyond cavil, that it is not my material
eyes which finally see,

Nor my material body which finally loves, walks, laughs, shouts,
embraces, procreates.


O the farmer's joys!

Ohioan's, Illinoisian's, Wisconsinese', Kanadian's, Iowan's,
Kansian's, Missourian's, Oregonese' joys;

To rise at peep of day, and pass forth nimbly to work,

To plow land in the fall for winter-sown crops,

To plough land in the spring for maize,

To train orchards--to graft the trees--to gather apples in the fall.

O the pleasure with trees!
The orchard--the forest--the oak, cedar, pine, pekan-tree, 120
The honey-locust, black-walnut, cottonwood, and magnolia.


O Death! the voyage of Death!

The beautiful touch of Death, soothing and benumbing a few moments,
for reasons;

Myself, discharging my excrementitious body, to be burn'd, or
render'd to powder, or buried,

My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,

My voided body, nothing more to me, returning to the purifications,
further offices, eternal uses of the earth.

O to bathe in the swimming-bath, or in a good place along shore!

To splash the water! to walk ankle-deep--to race naked along the
shore.

O to realize space!

The plenteousness of all--that there are no bounds; 130

To emerge, and be of the sky--of the sun and moon, and the flying
clouds, as one with them.

O the joy of a manly self-hood!

Personality--to be servile to none--to defer to none--not to any
tyrant, known or unknown,

To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,

To look with calm gaze, or with a flashing eye,

To speak with a full and sonorous voice, out of a broad chest,

To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the
earth.

Know'st thou the excellent joys of youth?

Joys of the dear companions, and of the merry word, and laughing
face?

Joys of the glad, light-beaming day--joy of the wide-breath'd
games? 140

Joy of sweet music--joy of the lighted ball-room, and the dancers?

Joy of the friendly, plenteous dinner--the strong carouse, and
drinking?


Yet, O my soul supreme!
Know'st thou the joys of pensive thought?
Joys of the free and lonesome heart--the tender, gloomy heart?
Joy of the solitary walk--the spirit bowed yet proud--the suffering


and the struggle?
The agonistic throes, the extasies--joys of the solemn musings, day

or night?
Joys of the thought of Death--the great spheres Time and Space?
Prophetic joys of better, loftier love's ideals--the Divine Wife--the


sweet, eternal, perfect Comrade?
Joys all thine own, undying one--joys worthy thee, O Soul. 150

O, while I live, to be the ruler of life--not a slave,
To meet life as a powerful conqueror,
No fumes--no ennui--no more complaints, or scornful criticisms.


O me repellent and ugly!
To these proud laws of the air, the water, and the ground, proving my
interior Soul impregnable,
And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.

O to attract by more than attraction!
How it is I know not--yet behold! the something which obeys none of
the rest,
It is offensive, never defensive--yet how magnetic it draws.

O joy of suffering! 160
To struggle against great odds! to meet enemies undaunted!
To be entirely alone with them! to find how much one can stand!
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death, face to face!
To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect


nonchalance!
To be indeed a God!


O, to sail to sea in a ship!
To leave this steady, unendurable land!
To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the


houses;
To leave you, O you solid motionless land, and entering a ship,
To sail, and sail, and sail! 170


O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys!
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on,
To be a sailor of the world, bound for all ports,
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
A swift and swelling ship, full of rich words--full of joys.

Pensive On Her Dead Gazing, I Heard The Mother Of All

PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All,
Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle


fields gazing;
(As the last gun ceased--but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd;)
As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd:
Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried--I charge you, lose not my

sons! lose not an atom;
And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood;
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly,
And all you essences of soil and growth--and you, my rivers' depths;
And you, mountain sides--and the woods where my dear children's

blood, trickling, redden'd;
And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future
trees, 10
My dead absorb--my young men's beautiful bodies absorb--and their
precious, precious, precious blood;
Which holding in trust for me, faithfully back again give me, many a

year hence,
In unseen essence and odor of surface and grass, centuries hence;
In blowing airs from the fields, back again give me my darlings--give

my immortal heroes;
Exhale me them centuries hence--breathe me their breath--let not an

atom be lost;
O years and graves! O air and soil! O my dead, an aroma sweet!
Exhale them perennial, sweet death, years, centuries hence.

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child


leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower'd halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as


if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and


fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as
if with tears,
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in

the mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous'd words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such as now they start the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.


Once Paumanok,
When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass


was growing,
Up this seashore in some briers,
Two feather'd guests from Alabama, two together,
And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,
And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,
And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, with


bright eyes,
And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never
disturbing them,
Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.

Shine! shine! shine!
Pour down your warmth, great sun!
While we bask, we two together.


Two together!
Winds blow south, or winds blow north,
Day come white, or niqht come black,
Home, or rivers and mountains from home,
Singing all time, minding no time,
While we two keep together.



Till of a sudden,
May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate,
One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest,
Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next,
Nor ever appear'd again.


And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,
And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather,
Over the hoarse surging of the sea,
Or flitting from brier to brier by day,
I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,
The solitary guest from Alabama.


Blow! blow! blow!
Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore;
I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.


Yes, when the stars glisten'd,
All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake,
Down almost amid the slapping waves,
Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears.


He call'd on his mate,
He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know.
Yes my brother I know,
The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note,
For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,
Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the


shadows,
Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds


and sights after their sorts,
The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,
I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,
Listen'd long and long.


Listen'd to keep, to sing, now translating the notes,
Following you my brother.


Soothe! soothe! soothe!
Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,
And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close,
But my love soothes not me, not me.


Low hangs the moon, it rose late,
It is lagging--O I think it is heavy with love, with love.


O madly the sea pushes upon the land,
With love, with love.


O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers?
What is that little black thing I see there in the white?



Loud! loud! loud!
Loud I call to you, my love!


Hiqh and clear I shoot my voice over the waves,
Surely you must know who is here, is here,
You must know who I am, my love.


Low-hanging moon!
What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?
O it is the shape, the shape of my mate!
O moon do not keep her from me any longer.


Land! land! O land!


Whichever way I turn, 0 I think you could give me my mate
back again if you only would,


For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.


O rising stars!
Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.


O throat! 0 trembling throat!
Sound clearer through the atmosphere!
Pierce the woods, the earth,
Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want.


Shake out carols!
Solitary here, the niqht's carols!
Carols of lonesome love! death's carols!
Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon!
O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea!
O reckless despairing carols.


But soft! sink low!


Soft! let me just murmur,


And do you wait a moment you husky-nois'd sea,


For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,


So faint, I must be still, be still to listen,


But not altogether still, for then she miqht not come immediately
to me.


Hither my love!
Here I am! here!
With this just-sustain'd note I announce myself to you,
This gentle call is for you my love, for you.


Do not be decoy'd elsewhere,
That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice,
That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray,
Those are the shadows of leaves.


O darkness! 0 in vain!
0 I am very sick and sorrowful.



O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea!
O troubled reflection in the sea!
O throat! 0 throbbing heart!
And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the niqht.


0 past! 0 happy life! 0 songs of joy!
In the air, in the woods, over fields,
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!
But my mate no more, no more with me!
We two together no more.


The aria sinking,
All else continuing, the stars shining,
The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,
With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,
On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling,
The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping,


the face of the sea almost touching,
The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair
the atmosphere dallying,
The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last

tumultuously bursting,
The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,
The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,
The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering,
The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,
To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd


secret hissing,
To the outsetting bard.


Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,)
Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?
For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I


have heard you,
Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,
And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer,


louder and more sorrowful than yours,
A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me,


never to die.
O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,
O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease


perpetuating you,
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before


what there in the night,
By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,
The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.


O give me the clew! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,)
O if I am to have so much, let me have more!



A word then, (for I will conquer it,)

The word final, superior to all,

Subtle, sent up--what is it?--I listen;

Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you seawaves?


Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?

Whereto answering, the sea,

Delaying not, hurrying not,

Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before
daybreak,

Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,

And again death, death, death, death,

Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd
child's heart,

But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,

Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly
all over,

Death, death, death, death, death.

Which I do not forget,

But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,

That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray
beach,

With the thousand responsive songs at random,

My own songs awaked from that hour,

And with them the key, the word up from the waves,

The word of the sweetest song and all songs,

That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,

(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet
garments, bending aside,)

The sea whisper'd me.

Over The Carnage

OVER the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
Be not dishearten'd--Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom
yet;
Those who love each other shall become invincible--they shall yet
make Columbia victorious.


Sons of the Mother of All! you shall yet be victorious!
You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the
earth.


No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers;
If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.


One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade;
From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another, an Oregonese, shall be
friends triune,
More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth. 10

To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come;
Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.


It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly


affection;
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly;
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.


These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron;
I, extatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.


(Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers?
Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms? 20
--Nay--nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)

One's Self I Sing

ONE'S-SELF I sing--a simple, separate Person;
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.


Of Physiology from top to toe I sing;
Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse--I say
the Form complete is worthier far;
The Female equally with the male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful--for freest action form'd, under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.

One Song, America, Before I Go

ONE song, America, before I go,
I'd sing, o'er all the rest, with trumpet sound,
For thee--the Future.


I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality;
I'd fashion thy Ensemble, including Body and Soul;
I'd show, away ahead, thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish'd.


(The paths to the House I seek to make,
But leave to those to come, the House itself.)


Belief I sing--and Preparation;
As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the Present


only, 10
But greater still from what is yet to come,
Out of that formula for Thee I sing.

Once I Pass'd Through A Populous City

ONCE I pass'd through a populous city, imprinting my brain, for
future use, with its shows, architecture, customs, and
traditions;

Yet now, of all that city, I remember only a woman I casually met
there, who detain'd me for love of me;
Day by day and night by night we were together,--All else has long

been forgotten by me;
I remember, I say, only that woman who passionately clung to me;
Again we wander--we love--we separate again;
Again she holds me by the hand--I must not go!
I see her close beside me, with silent lips, sad and tremulous.

On The Beach At Night

ON the beach, at night,
Stands a child, with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.


Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter;
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades. 10


From the beach, the child, holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower, victorious, soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.


Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears;
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky--shall devour the stars only in


apparition:
Jupiter shall emerge--be patient--watch again another night--the
Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal--all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall
shine out again, 20
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again--they
endure;
The vast immortal suns, and the long-enduring pensive moons, shall
again shine.

Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?


Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter, 30
Longer than sun, or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.

On Journeys Through The States

ON journeys through the States we start,
(Ay, through the world--urged by these songs,
Sailing henceforth to every land--to every sea;)
We, willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all.


We have watch'd the seasons dispensing themselves, and passing on,
We have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the
seasons, and effuse as much?

We dwell a while in every city and town;
We pass through Kanada, the north-east, the vast valley of the


Mississippi, and the Southern States;
We confer on equal terms with each of The States,
We make trial of ourselves, and invite men and women to hear; 10
We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the body

and the Soul;
Dwell a while and pass on--Be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic,
And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,
And may be just as much as the seasons.